Hand of Fate
by Tahllydarling
Summary: He had no reason to think that it wasn't business as usual, not until three bullets slammed into his torso and he found himself bleeding in the street. * On Hiatus *
1. Chapter 1

Where was Clint Barton during the events of CATWS? This is just something I've been playing around with for a while - potential to turn into something longer.

* * *

It was a mark of how well planned it all was that they sent someone he trusted to do the deed, a mark of their intelligence that they sent someone he wouldn't doubt for an instant. He assumed that the agent walking towards him at an arranged drop was bringing orders from Fury; he had no reason to think that it wasn't business as usual, not until three bullets slammed into his torso and he found himself bleeding in the street with the words "Hail Hydra" ringing in his ears.

Athens had never been good to him; three missions in fifteen years, seven penetrating wounds to show for them. All in a day's work. Sometimes he wondered exactly how he'd managed to survive the shitstorm of his adolescence long enough to be recruited to SHIELD, though in that moment he wasn't entirely sure why he had ever thought that life on the other side of the fence would be any better.

Amid the screaming and the inability to draw a full breath, he had lain in the road with the taste of his own blood in his mouth. He had wanted to get to his feet, to give chase and find out just what the hell Jensen had meant when he invoked the name of a long dead Nazi science division, but the stabbing pain in his chest when he tried to move had quickly let him know that was not going to be an option. No heroism then, no answers, just pain and panic, fleeing civilians, and one solitary good samaritan that stayed with him when everyone else ran for cover.

"Hold on," she told him, applying what in his somewhat biased opinion might have been a touch too much pressure to the site of the bleeding, "help is on the way."

He wanted to believe her, he really did, but if SHIELD agents were gunning down other SHIELD agents in the street because they were actually working for Hydra, then help seemed a long way off. Perhaps he was already delirious from the pain? The urge to laugh aloud made him consider the possibility, though if he recalled correctly it was also one of the signs of hypoxia. Clint made a concerted effort to breathe, pulling the air into his lungs in spite of the jaw clenching pain the action caused him. He was aware of the ambulance and of armed police as he slipped from consciousness, his last thoughts being to wonder about the statistical probability of survival if Hydra really were making a comeback as the darkness descended and to wonder how the hell he was going to explain who he was to the authorities when he came round.

He woke to sunlight and the steady pulse of pain in his chest and hip, head slightly fuzzier than it had been immediately after the shooting and its subsequent bounce off the ground as he fell. Three bullets, not even a get well soon card or a hot nurse to make it worthwhile. Disoriented, he blinked and took in the room. Standard medical environment, typical machines, a fluorescent light that flickered in time honoured and incredibly irritating fashion. Hospital not military, he decided, an assessment that was reinforced by the discovery that he was handcuffed to the bed rail. Fantastic.

The tac vest had saved him, his ass winding up in a hospital bed rather than a morgue table thanks to nothing more than quick reflexes and the thin layer of kevlar beneath his shirt. The vest had definitely taken the worst of it, two in the chest resulting in nothing more serious than a cracked rib or two, some bruising that resembled a rorschach test, and a serious urge to wince every few seconds when he inhaled. The third bullet, the one that went in just above his left hip, was the charm. Surgery needed: do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

Slowly the memories drifted back, blood, pain, panic. Hydra. He wondered how long he had been in the drug induced sleep of post surgery and decided that it was probably too long. There wasn't time to lie around feeling sorry for himself, he needed to get up and get moving. He had to report to Fury, or whomever was at the helm at that moment.

He glanced at the clock on the wall and found that it was over three hours since the shooting, and there, confined to a hospital bed and half dosed on post op pain meds, he finally came to understand what it all meant. Someone had rather helpfully tuned the TV in his room to a news station and the headlines were alarming, unbelievable even. There were few things that Clint Barton had ever ruled out seeing on television, a wise precaution following the events in Manhattan a couple of years earlier - the world was certainly far bigger than even SHIELD had given it credit for - but the sight of the Triskellion burning on international news was one of those things. He had never anticipated the burning of SHIELD's mothership.

The news were speculating that the attack had a terrorist motive but Clint caught the distinctive whiff of Hydra in the mix. The coincidence was too strong to deny, first he was shot by a SHIELD operative claiming loyalty to Hydra and suddenly SHIELD, and by association all of its agents, were the bad guys.

How would they bring down a security organisation like SHIELD? First eliminate top assets, second cause chaos, third discredit. Textbook really, the signs were easy to see if you knew what to look for.

The guy who shot him wouldn't have claimed responsibility for a long dead Nazi science division if there wasn't any truth in it, and he certainly wouldn't have announced his masters so willingly if he'd intended for Barton to survive.

Definitely time to check out of the hospital and go to ground.

He was hardly a rookie and he knew from personal experience that a good assassin, not that they called them that on paper but he was in favour of calling a spade a spade, rarely waited for the target to regain strength before coming back to finish what they had failed to accomplish the first time. Without SHIELD however, he had no credentials, no diplomatic protection, and no hope of extraction. If he was going to get out of his current predicament, he was going to have to do it himself.

Step one: get out of the handcuffs.

For a few minutes he simply stared at the television screen, fighting off the effects of the pain medication that was still in his system. He flexed his wrist against the cuff that bound him to the bed and considered the options. While most of his colleagues on the Avengers team would argue that Clint was more of a fighter than a thinker, he had been known to get himself into and out of more than a few ridiculously tight spots in the years since he had found the dubious calling that became his career. He was not entirely without his wiles.

Truths presented themselves; he was alone, without backup, and with Hydra's reach becoming increasingly clear he couldn't trust the medical personnel or the police assigned to guard his room. He was also an Avenger, three years in the field with Rogers, Stark et al had to have done something to prepare him for a situation like this. He'd be damned if he just sat there on his ass and waited to die.

"C'mon Barton," he chastised himself, "think."

His eyes bounced around the room, looking for anything that he might use to get out of the cuffs. He wasn't exactly a stranger to restraints, professional and recreational exploits had made him more familiar with such things than the average joe. He wouldn't say that he was an expert but he'd learned a thing or two from Natasha about how to escape from almost incalculable odds. There was a reason why Fury turned to the Widow when he wanted the impossible.

"What would Romanoff do?" he whispered, trying to see the room through his partner's eyes. She was definitely the brains of their operation but he had other skills, skills that only seemed to manifest with pinpoint accuracy when his life was on the line. There were any number of things in his immediate vicinity that could be turned into a weapon if he could only get his hands on them, which was more than likely the reason they had cuffed him in the first place.

All right, focus:

Option one - feign a medical issue and try to talk his way out of the cuffs. Brief consideration ruled out that option, too risky in the event that the responding attendant was male, in spite of what Stark might imply with his constant commentary about Clint's sexual orientation, there were some roads he just wasn't interested in going down. There was also the potential that his attendants might be working for Hydra, or fast enough to shoot him full of pain relief before he could gain the advantage.

Option two - try to talk the guards into letting him out of the cuffs. He was a charming guy, not without the skill to turn many situations to his advantage, but there were limits to what he could do under the circumstances. Convince them that he was open to defection? A possibility, but not without risk.

Instead his eyes landed on the table by his bed and the plastic food tray that rested on its surface, obviously left there for when he woke up. A plan, quickly and imaginatively labelled option three, began to form in his mind, details fell into place as he ran through the variables. If he could get his hands on that fork, he could most likely pick the cuffs, another highly advantageous skill that he had picked up from his partner - what he wouldn't have given in that moment for one of the seven thousand bobby pins that Natasha seemed to dress her hair with - then it was just a simple matter of overpowering the guard and making his escape.

It said a lot that option three, complete with the risk of debilitating physical injury, was the most feasible. It was not shaping up to be the day that he had imagined, sun, sambuca and sightseeing being replaced with blood, surgery and betrayal. As soon as he was done taking care of his current predicament, he was definitely going to have to rethink his opinions on solo missions.

"Can't wait to tell this story," he muttered to himself, "going to be a doozy."


	2. Chapter 2

It took some effort, more effort than he was strictly comfortable with but he would never admit that to anyone else, to manoeuvre himself around in the bed and edge the table closer with one foot. His side ached, his chest too, and it felt like cracked ribs were rubbing against one another as he shifted on the mattress, though he very much doubted that to be the case. Clamping a hand over his injured ribs, he grunted quietly and somehow managed to keep the tirade of curses from escaping his mouth. No sense in drawing attention until he was ready.

In the end it was a well placed kick that got the job done, bringing his heel down in exactly the right spot and with the exact force needed to send the fork sailing through the air towards his free hand. It really was amazing what one could achieve when there was nobody there to distract him, unfortunately that also meant that there was never anyone there to witness such glorious moments.

Escaping from the cuffs was one thing, quite easily achievable in the grand scheme of things, being ambidextrous certainly had its advantages, but getting vertical was another challenge entirely. In fact, it took him three, somewhat embarrassing, attempts just to get his legs over the side of the mattress. Instinct and habit had him moving faster than his body was capable of in its current condition and a fresh shot of pain exploded in his ribs and hip, causing him to tense his jaw and brace just about every muscle he had to keep himself upright.

Gritting his teeth, he watched the clock for a count of twenty, following the movement of the hands as he breathed the fire out of his lungs and waited for his body to get with the programme.

At twenty five seconds he felt steady enough to consider his next move. Not bad. That part, however, he'd leave out of the glorious retelling, no point in giving Stark ammunition to fire when he tore the story to shreds.

Opportunity presented itself a short while later when a male nurse came to check on him, his head buried in the chart that he held in his hands. It might have been insulting how little deference they paid to his skillset if not for the fact that they expected him to be both unconscious and cuffed to the bed, he wasn't above taking advantage of the oversight however. Acting quickly, and before his conscience could kick in, Clint subdued the guy with a choke hold and lowered his unconscious form to the floor. It took way more effort than he would admit to strip him of his uniform and half lift - half drag him into the bed, head turned away from the door in the hope of fooling anyone who might glance inside at least temporarily.

Panting and pressing a closed fist against the dressing that covered his hip, he gave passing thought to the incredulity of his situation. Every time he thought that he'd found the story to end all argument about whose missions had gone the furthest off script, life would find another creative way to kick him in the ass. Under normal circumstances Fury probably would have benched his ass for a week for taking just one bullet, let alone three, but circumstances were hardly normal; Clint might be up against it but he had little choice but to act quickly.

He'd raided a few washing lines in his time, including the one at the Serbian monastery while staying one step ahead of rebel forces, but he'd never stolen the clothes off a man's back before, desperate times however called for desperate measures.

While his injuries made themselves known and his balance faltered precariously, he plugged himself into the medical scrubs that were suddenly available and made a break for it. A final glance over his shoulder showed that the nurse remained out for the count before he crouched carefully to retrieve the fallen clipboard with his patient notes attached to it. Apparently they had given him the minimum amount of anaesthesia possible during the surgery, something which he would surely find time to be thankful for once he was safely out of the hospital and on his way.

The guard in the hall didn't even look up when Clint emerged, too engrossed in the time honoured sport of nurse watching to notice that the figure leaving the room was not the same one who had stepped inside a few minutes earlier. He kept his head down, giving the illusion of a man absorbed in the paperwork in front of him, keeping his pace as normal as possible and fighting the urge to check his stride with every metre he put between himself and his captors. With every step he waited for the yelling to begin, for someone to realise that he was not what he was pretending to be.

Reflexively, he toyed with the staff access card attached to his stolen uniform. Most of the doors had swipe access to stop the public entering restricted areas, he could easily slip through one of the doors if he needed to.

He made it around the first corner and part way along the next hall before the alarm was raised. In spite of the pain in his side, he breathed evenly and hoped that the sweat he could feel building on his skin didn't make him look too shifty. For his escape to be successful he would need to blend in with the crowd; he needed to be completely unremarkable in his appearance and demeanor. Using his access card, he ducked through a doorway and found himself in a medical supply closet. Lights flickered to life above him as he stepped inside, motion sensitive, and he quickly chanced a glance to make sure that there were no windows in the door. Only when he had ascertained that nobody passing in the hall could see him did he let out a deep, relieved breath.

For a second he leaned against the door and listened to the raised voices on the other side. Rushing footsteps and yelling, two things that nobody attempting an escape from armed police wanted to hear, particularly when boxed into a small room with little space to manoeuvre. Though his command of Greek could hardly be called fluent, he understood enough to know that the emergency was medical rather than a security breach. He was safe, for the moment.

Floor to ceiling steel shelving units were bolted to the floor, each of them well stocked with a range of bandages, dressings and other medical equipment that was just there for the taking. Scanning the shelves, he compiled a mental list of what he would need to treat the wound to his hip while he was on the move. Field triage was something that he had become frighteningly adept at in the years since he had joined SHIELD - something else to be thrilled about, obviously.

He'd like to say that it wasn't like the movies but sometimes it was exactly like that, improbable as it seemed. Who didn't love having to stitch themselves closed in a filthy gas station bathroom with a homemade IV plugged into their vein? There were times when he would find himself wondering whether SHIELD sold on the field reports he filed as movie scripts, when he would find himself shifting uncomfortably in his cinema seat while something a little too close to reality played out on a forty foot screen in front of him.

Clint had been injured in the line of duty enough times to know exactly what he would need to ensure that the wound healed cleanly. He'd also been injured enough times to be thankful for the fact that everything he needed was just there waiting for him to take it. At least he wouldn't have to make a creative pit stop at a back road pharmacy somewhere to get medical supplies.

Without knowing how long he might be on the road, or how many times he might have to stop and lie low, it was difficult to know how much to take. Without the ability to call for an extraction, he was going to have to get himself half way across the world with nothing more than his wits and the contents of a safety deposit box or two. In the end he settled for enough to get him through a couple of weeks, gathering together dressings, suture kits, sterile alcohol and a couple of other necessities that were good to have handy when there was an exciting and ever present possibility of getting shot at. Again.

Throwing his gathered supplies into a conveniently discarded medic's bag, he added a couple of boxes of generic, non prescription painkillers, some syringes, tubing and three bags of saline solution for good measure - again thinking back to homemade IV's and their sometimes less than pleasant effects. Give him saline any day over that possibility. When he had everything he needed, he leaned against the door frame and studied the laminated floor map that was pinned to the wall beside the door.

The key to remaining unnoticed in public buildings was to move with purpose and to know exactly where you were headed. There was a janitorial closet a few doors along the hall and just beyond it was a sharp right turn into the hallway that led toward the staff locker room. He'd never been the type to store an encyclopaedic knowledge of hospital cleaning chemicals and their potentially explosive combinations, unlike other SHIELD agents that he could mention, but he knew enough to know that if he wanted to create a distraction, the janitorial closet was a good place to start.

If it meant getting out cleanly, Clint was not above taking advantage of the opportunity to play chemist with the cleaning products. At this point, he was willing to mess up his hair, don a white lab coat and adopt the mad professor persona if it would help, which in turn led to him wondering just how hard his head had bounced when he hit the floor a few hours earlier.

Head down, he exited the closet and wound his way between the staff and patients in the hallway. He didn't look over his shoulder, didn't look at his surroundings at all, he simply moved from point A to point B and hoped that his chameleon-like tendencies would serve him well. On this particular occasion, he was not disappointed.

The supply closet was well stocked, and perhaps more importantly accessible to him with the access card he had taken from the unfortunate nurse currently sleeping in his hospital bed. Not entirely heartless, he spared a moment to hope that the poor guy wouldn't wind up dead for his unwilling role in his ad-hoc escape plan - not that there was much he could do to ensure that it didn't come to that. All being well Clint Barton would be long gone before any of Hydra's people realised that it wasn't him cuffed to that bed.

"Okay so, chemistry," he mused, surveying the array of chemicals that were laid out before him. Chemistry hadn't exactly been his strongest suit, the circus didn't tend to offer the standard high school science syllabus, but he'd spent enough time around explosives to have enough idea of which compounds shouldn't be mixed together. A simple smoke bomb wasn't beyond his capabilities. He'd even bothered to learn the chemical names and symbols for occasions such as this when he was faced with labels that weren't printed in english - never let it be said that he didn't do the important bits of the homework.

Hooking a steel janitor's bucket from the corner of the room he set about mixing his ticket out of this mess. The small room filled with the smell of ammonia and he had to breathe through his mouth in a futile attempt to stop his eyes watering. "Little bit of this," he muttered to himself, upending a large container and pouring some of its contents into the already pungent mixture, " and we are good to go."

It wouldn't do any real damage, just a little smoke, a foul smell and a dash of panic, but it would do the job. He was gone before the air in the room thickened, the harsh sound of chemicals fizzing in his wake as he ducked back out into the hallway and headed for the staff locker room, leaving the door propped slightly ajar by the rubber door stop he had found inside.

Searching for the locker that matched the key that he had found buried in the pocket of his borrowed pants, he checked off the numbers as he passed them by.

"You have got to be kidding me," he groaned, pulling open the door to find a pair of slim fitting black jeans, selection of brightly coloured t-shirts and a black leather jacket that smelled of cigarette smoke. There wasn't time to force other locker doors in search of something more favourable though, he would have to make the best of what was there. At least the biker boots were something that he approved of and the cap that hung on the inside of the door would help to conceal his face.

Street clothing, cash and car keys acquired, he slipped back into the hallways, mindful of the presence of security cameras that were no doubt keeping watch on the public areas of the hospital. Judging by how busy the hallways were, it had to be visiting time. The realisation gave him a split second of regret over what he had set in motion, but the flash of guilt was literally that, a flash, and then he was back to anxiously counting down the seconds until his carefully planned distraction did its job.

"Right on cue," he muttered to himself as the fire alarms began to wail. An emergency announcement recording began to play and the tide of people around him changed direction, a combination of self preservation and herd instinct making them head toward the nearest available exit. Convenient, since he hadn't thought to ascertain its location when looking at the floor plan earlier - he was beginning to see why people felt he was the reactive member of his and Natasha's partnership.

Head down, the threaded between the crowd, deliberately trying to avoid giving the CCTV cameras a clear shot of him. When Hydra finally figured out that he was missing, it would be better for all concerned if they weren't sure exactly what he was wearing or where he was going. With that in mind he had popped the locks on three other lockers in the staff changing room and helped himself to the car keys within. At least the fact that they would have to check out four potential vehicles would buy him a few minutes.

Carried on the tide of anxious visitors and harried staff, he kept his head down, monitored the conversations around him for any mention of an escaped prisoner, and headed for the busiest and most chaotic exit route. Let Hydra monitor the emergency exits, he, his stolen clothes and his bag of drugs were about to walk straight out of the front door.


	3. Chapter 3

The scene outside of the hospital was as chaotic as he had expected with staff and patients milling around, nobody entirely too sure where they should be going. As his eyes adjusted to the glare of the bright afternoon sunlight, Clint allowed himself a brief glance at his surroundings; tall buildings, wide open gardens that were apparently therapeutic to patients, and a multi storey parking structure presented themselves for his perusal. He opened his hand to look at the car keys and set off purposefully in that direction.

Contrary to what movies might suggest, it isn't as easy as people might think to find a single car among dozens in a public parking garage, even when the car in question had central locking and therefore provided a helpful auditory homing signal. Multi storey parking structures made for a frustrating car theft experience, particularly when there was a limit to the available time to commit the crime. He knew the most likely spots for security cameras and kept his cap pulled low over his face as he moved, repeatedly pressing the lock release on the key fob as he moved between the rows of vehicles.

Sweat prickled on the back of his neck and the steadily growing ache in his lower abdomen made him wonder whether he had done something to the wound tract during his hastily enacted escape plan. Most patients weren't even on their feet in the hours immediately after surgery let alone on the run - just another reminder that since joining SHIELD very little about his life could be described as normal.

He found the car, a serviceable but not too flashy BMW, on the third floor. It had seen better days, that much was obvious but the upholstery was clean and well maintained, which he was grateful for given the state of some cars he'd commandeered in his time. As he folded his body into the driver's seat, the waistband of his stolen jeans pressed uncomfortably against the extraction site and the thin dressing that covered it. Allowing a moment to check the wound, he found that blood was already seeping through the dressing, a sign that he had in fact been right to take more medical supplies than he had initially intended.

Torn stitches, just what was missing from this scenario to make the day perfect. Not daring to waste time dressing the wound properly, he rummaged in the bag of supplies until he found a suitable dressing. Swallowing a creative curse, he slapped the self adhesive pad to the wound site and carefully lowered the t-shirt to cover it before easing the car casually out of its space and down to the ground floor exit.

"Fortune smiles again," he muttered when no security checkpoints or barriers presented themselves to slow down his escape. He kept to just below the speed limit to avoid attracting attention, though the temptation was to peal out of there with tyres squealing and leave a cloud of smoke in his wake. He did not however feel the need to add the drama of a police chase to his tale, particularly when he had yet to formulate the next stage of the plan that would lead to safety.

He was clear of the hospital and contemplating his next move when he realised that he was spectacularly unarmed and his bow, not just any bow but his favourite, was back at the place that he had been calling home while he waited for orders to fall into place.

"Goddammit!" he growled and slapped a hand on the steering wheel to punctuate the thought, irritated at the fact that his favourite weapon, one that he had carried for years and almost considered to be an extension of his own being, a bow which Nat had often joked was the great love of his life, might be about to fall into enemy hands. And that was before he thought about all of the customised arrows that were racked up and carefully stored with it.

Dare he risk going back to the apartment where he had been staying? He knew the answer before he'd finished thinking the question though. No way was he leaving his bow behind. He was leaving his dignity, that was more than enough to sacrifice to those Nazi bastards.

Brazen and perhaps foolish the plan might be, but Clint had not completely taken leave of his senses. In order to ensure that the coast was clear at his place, he circled the block a couple of times and then parked the car a couple of streets away. Still wearing the cap, he skirted between the buildings and along the narrow winding streets of the neighbourhood that he had been calling home. Everything looked quiet but he still took the time to buy a coffee at a nearby cafe and maintain quiet watch over the entrance to his building.

When he was sure that the coast was clear he slipped inside.

The apartment gave up no obvious signs that anyone had been inside, nothing visible at least. His weapons were exactly where he'd left them, as were the neatly stacked cups and plates on the drainer and the clothes still folded in the go bag by the bed. Had he not happened to glance down at the newspaper on the coffee table, he would have believed that nobody had set foot in the place since he had left that morning.

"Sloppy," he remarked under his breath, turning the newspaper so that the headline, a scathing attack on the country's financial status could be seen. Clint was not a man who advertised his neat streak outwardly but he did have his quirks, weapons were always stored properly, clothes were always folded, and he never folded over the pages of reading material.

Someone else had been in his space in the hours since he had last been there. He could seriously do without the added excitement of a chase but it looked like his fairy godmother was taking a vacation. Moving quickly, he gathered his bow and the new ammo that he had been working on, slipping the bow over his shoulder and storing the quivver, shafts and arrowheads in a custom built duffel bag that was hidden in the bottom of a cupboard.

As the sound of feet in the stairwell drifted upwards, Clint darted out onto the balcony and surveyed the street below from the relative cover of the small, ceramic potted olive tree that the owners had been nurturing. One car, three men, none of whom appeared to be armed or expecting a fugitive to be in their midst. All he had to do was find an alternative route back to the car and he might just escape unnoticed.

Drain pipe. He followed the pipe to the terracotta tiled roof and the relative security of the high places he had always favoured. Clint saw better from a distance, always had. He'd rather risk tearing up the gunshot wound he already had than risk taking another bullet, so he climbed.

Sure footed, he moved across the rooftops and away from what he had to assume were Hydra agents. Bow over one shoulder and bag over the other, he ran back in the direction of the car, thankful that the slope of the rooftops didn't give him too much trouble. He might spend more time in the high places than most but he didn't often attempt daring rooftop escapes while hampered by three separate bullet wounds and protest from quite as many muscle groups.

A roof terrace and a convenient outdoor staircase brought him back to street level, one hand within easy reach of the folding knife that he had concealed in the pocket of his stolen jacket. His bow was stuffed into the top of the duffel, no sense in drawing attention. _Did you happen to notice a man with a bow and arrows walking around here?_ There were times when a low profile was a definite bonus - having a Hydra scouting party up his ass being one of them.

Without looking around himself, he moved with practised and deliberate calm toward the parked car at the end of the narrow street. He was about two thirds of the way there when he felt the familiar prickling that suggested he was being watched. Yes, sometimes the life of a top flight assassin was the gift that kept on giving, bullet wounds, paranoia and familiarity with what it felt like to have someone's eyes on you in a less than sexual manner.

The car was stiflingly hot as he climbed inside and closed the door, immediately plugging the key into the ignition and starting the engine. Slipping on the sunglasses that he had retrieved from the bedside table, he feigned casual and glanced around. Three people on the street, an old woman sweeping the stoop outside her home, a middle aged man on a bike and a younger man whose posture positively screamed military training. Their eyes locked and there was a moment of recognition, hunter and hunted.

"Mother fu...," Clint cursed, cutting himself off when the man in front of him reached inside his jacket with one hand. No time for subtlety, not now that he had been seen. Gunning the engine, he swerved away from the kerb and shot along the narrow street, forcing the Hydra agent to dive out of his way.

He figured that he had a minute tops before they were on his tail and a minute just didn't seem like very long to think up a plausible way out of his current predicament.


	4. Chapter 4

The BMW wasn't in the same league as the Dodge Charger that Tony considered to be the one true love of Clint's life, but it was well tuned and responsive. Slamming the car down into third gear, he swerved around a sharp bend and tore down the narrow street ahead of him, eyes flicking to the rearview every couple of seconds. They would be on his tail, nothing he could do about that now except put as much distance between himself and those that chased him.

The warren of streets might afford potential places to hide but it wasn't conducive to getting any serious speed up. Knocking over an unsuspecting pedestrian was not high on Clint's list of things to do. With that in mind, he needed to get clear of the city and out onto the open road. He needed a plan: get clear, switch vehicles, put as much distance between himself and Athens as he possibly could.

A black car appeared in his rearview, moving too quickly for him to identify make and model. He didn't need a banner to be flying from the back of the thing, he'd seen it already in the street outside of the apartment. Buildings flashed by in his peripheral vision, whitewashed and nondescript, as he glanced in his wing mirror. Gaining. Definitely gaining.

Several streets blurred together as he drifted the car through a series of turns that it simply wasn't designed to make, only to hit the accelerator as soon as his brain registered that he hadn't yet managed to kill himself. He hazarded a glance at the fuel gage and found the tank three quarters full; perhaps someone was smiling on him after all. A man really couldn't head out on a joy ride with the imminent threat of running out of fuel hanging over him.

He turned another corner, almost tipping the car in the process. Tyres squealed and he had to force his hands to stay relaxed on the wheel. "Damn!" he exclaimed, finding the end of the street partially blocked by a reversing delivery truck. With few options, he quickly scanned his surroundings. Gun it, potentially wipe out the side of the car and hope for the best? Bail out of the car and make a run for it on foot? Should he get the car into an alleyway and hope that they passed him by without noticing?

He was still heading right for the truck, his adrenaline kicking in before his mind had finished running the variables. Suicidal he was not, but he'd rather go on his own terms than at the hand of a Hydra thug.

At the last available moment, he swerved around the front of the still moving truck, the front of the car catching the edge of a fruit basket outside of a grocer's shop and spilling apples across the street. Horns blasted and tyres squealed as the car that had been following skidded on the loose fruit and slammed into the fruit display. With barely a backward glance, Clint wound his way further into the warren of streets that would lead him to the main road out of town.

The back streets were unfamiliar but Clint had always had a good sense of direction. He might not know exactly where he was headed - and under the circumstances who could blame him?- but he knew that he was headed in roughly the right direction if he wanted to make it to the highway and head the wide open spaces that would allow him to lose the people that were currently riding his bumper.

He didn't bother stopping on his way out of town, not when he'd already had one near escape. Reaching out, he let his fingertips stroke the familiar contours of the bow that protruded from the bag in the passenger footwell. Worth it, totally worth it.

The highway was relatively quiet, the early evening balmy and still. In spite of his aches and pains now that the adrenaline of the chase was fading, he settled in for a long drive, not daring to stop in case the car drew attention. At some point it would make sense for him to dump it, start over. Perhaps a train across the border into Bulgaria would be a viable option; he was almost sure that an old contact of his maintained a safe house in Sofia.

A light sheen of perspiration formed on his skin and he found himself aware of a slight headache. Post surgery and already on the move it was entirely possible that he was slightly dehydrated, assuming of course that blood loss or infection weren't playing a part. When had he last eaten? He couldn't remember.

As the sky darkened, he eased the car off the road and parked where the vehicle wouldn't be easily seen from the road. It would have been easy to crawl into the back seat and try to grab a couple of hours of sleep but there were risks attached to such an action. If Hydra, or local police for that matter, found him napping in the back of a stolen car, then he would be back to where he started.

Instead, he dragged his aching body a short distance to a small copse of trees, where he found a stream and took a moment to quench his thirst and swallow a couple of aspirin. He moved back through the undergrowth, careful not to leave an obvious trail, and studied each tree in turn until he found the most suitable for his purpose and then carefully climbed until he reached a sturdy branch upon which he could pass a couple of hours. He'd done this before - more times than he could count actually- and the prospect of spending a night beneath the open sky held few concerns for him. There had been times when he'd spent weeks at a time sleeping beneath the stars.

Easing the straps of his bag off his shoulders, he zipped up his jacket for warmth and settled himself back into the juncture between branch and trunk. Clint allowed a moment to simply breathe out the fire in his lungs. His side ached. His chest burned. He knew that he should check his wound, clean it, redress it, but the conditions weren't right - better to wait until he was on the ground or behind a closed door somewhere.

"Couple of hours and then back on the road," he told himself, fully aware that having a conversation with himself was the first step towards a lifetime of mockery from Stark. They all did it from time to time of course, who the hell didn't? It wasn't like he had anyone else to pass the time with.

Adjusting the position of his bag so that it was within easy reach, he looped a length of rope that he had found in the trunk of the car around himself and tied it securely. The last thing he needed right now, unlikely as it was, was to roll straight off the branch and into a twenty foot drop. This was not his first night spent on a tree limb, it wasn't even his tenth.

Tilting his head back to rest against the bark, he surveyed the stars through the leaves.

He liked the high places, always had since he was a child and old enough to climb the trees in the back yard. Over the years trees had given way to the big top, where he trained with the acrobats, to rooftops, fire escapes, water towers, mountain ranges and ventilation ducts, but he still needed to step back and survey the bigger picture. He had always been able to see things more clearly from a distance.

For the first time he gave serious consideration to where his partner might be, neck deep in trouble no doubt with only Rogers to help her out of it, Rogers who had a somewhat restricted view on what was ethical and what was not. Natasha was a survivor though, more than anyone he'd ever met she could adapt rapidly to change. At that moment, rough bark against his back and Hydra no doubt hard at work on tracking him, he only wished that he knew whether his best friend was alive or dead.

Clint drew the crisp evening air deep into his lungs and exhaled, once, twice, allowing the repetitive nature of the action to calm his racing thoughts. He could spare a couple of hours but needed to be back on the move before dawn if he wanted to maintain distance between himself and his pursuers. Calm, he needed to clear his head and just breathe so that he could will himself to sleep. Old skills came in handy from time to time, the ability to quickly fall asleep almost anywhere and the ability to will himself awake after a given window were ones that he didn't take lightly.

He didn't let himself think about what was coming next, or about what might be happening half the world away in Washington. Instead he concentrated on relaxing his fingers and toes one by one until his body was completely relaxed, heart rate steady, breathing even.

"We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars," he murmured to himself, reciting one of his favourite quotes for nights when the stars above his head were his only company. How many of his friends, colleagues, allies, were currently looking at the same constellations and wondering how their entire existences just imploded? Closing his eyes to block out the magnificence of the cosmos, Clint lapsed into dreamless sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

He woke stiff and aching and cold, but alive and undiscovered, an hour or so before dawn. Dropping down to the ground, he took the time to drink some water and fill up the water bottle that was buried in the bottom of his bag. Sitting on the bank, he examined the dressing that covered his wound and made a mental note to find somewhere secure where he could sterilise the area properly and redress it.

He was back on the road before the sun rose over the hills.

Meandering across country in the general direction of the Bulgarian border, he kept a watchful awareness of the road behind him. It was time to ditch the car, in spite of the obvious benefits of having his own transportation it was also a checkpoint stop waiting to happen.

"Okay, let's see what you have to offer in the way of music," he muttered to himself, shoving the first disc that he came across into the cd player. He was tired of the silence and didn't tend to get a lot of sense when he conversed with himself, besides it was more natural to have music playing in a car than to be driving in tense silence. A little bit of classic rock wouldn't go amiss, hell he'd even settle for disco if that was all that was on offer, just as long as it wasn't … Cheesy eighties rock flooded the car.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, fumbling with the controls to kill the volume. Silence resumed but not soon enough; Africa had done its work and the damned song would be rattling around in his head for hours, if not days. Chinese water torture would be preferable. Who the hell wrote a song with so many words crammed into a couple of lines anyway? The song might be a classic but Clint had never been able to get away with the way that the band tried to cram as many facts about Africa as they could into each verse.

More than that though the upbeat mood and harmonised vocals certainly didn't reflect his most recent trip to the Serengeti; there had been nothing worth singing about during that particular outing, though Wilson had certainly given the matter plenty of exploration. The whole mission had reminded Clint quite emphatically of why he had put his merc days behind him.

The thought led him down a path that he had been studiously avoiding; without the structure provided by SHIELD Clint had few options but a lengthy stint in prison or a return to the merc life. He could only hope that enough of his current life had survived to spare him that particular walk down memory lane.

Okay, so priorities. Objective one: find somewhere secure that he could change clothes and assess wounds for signs of infection. Objective two: secure alternative transportation. Objective three: ascertain as best as he could what the situation in Washington looked like.

In spite of earlier gripes that movies always showed spies patching themselves up in such glamorous surroundings, a gas station bathroom seemed like the best option to freshen himself up and address the wound in his side. He took a spare shirt from the bottom of his bag, mercifully black and free from logos, print or colourful slogans, and carried the small med bag into the bathroom with him.

The wound was worse than he'd hoped, the stitches and angry and red but the conditions weren't anywhere close to clean enough to attempt anything more than a cursory clean by hitting the site with antiseptic spray and a quick change of dressing. He bought bottled water from the station kiosk and asked for directions to both the nearest payphone and a town he absolutely wasn't going to. Before joining SHIELD he'd been on the run from the law enough to realise the importance of countermeasures.

Twelve miles down the road he sold the car for less than it was worth to second hand car dealer and bought something smaller and faster. The new car, an aging Land Rover, might not have air conditioning but since the driver side window didn't work, Clint didn't see that as an issue. He wouldn't be driving it for long anyway, another day at most.

A stop at a roadside farm shop provided him with lunch as he drove, fresh fruit that helped to offset the vague nausea that was more than likely caused by the meds. He pulled off the road and sat on a slope of overgrown grass to eat, his eyes roaming over the olive groves and scrub land that made up the view while his mind turned over the fragments of a plan that might help to get him back to US.

Hours passed and as the sun began to fall from the sky, he stopped at a roadside payphone. Years of missions overseas had made him startlingly adept at making international calls so his fingers moved swiftly around the keypad to enter the required international dial and area codes and then the number of his partner's answering service. Three rings, each of them seeming way too long and then the automated message that recited the number but no details of the service owner; internationally renowned spies didn't tend to announce their identities until they had ascertained who was looking for them. He toyed with the idea of entering Natasha's dial in code and listening to any messages left for her, but he quite liked the fact that all of his appendages were attached to his body so he swallowed the impulse.

Hanging up, he re-dialled and left a simple message, coded and succinct. If Natasha checked her messages then she would know what it meant. She would know, even amid the confusion and chaos of the Hydra re-emergence, that he was alive.

On a whim, he dialled his own service and came up empty. Not particularly encouraging. The fact that Natasha hadn't reached out could mean that she was too caught up in her mission with Rogers and hadn't had time, or it might mean something else entirely. He hung up the phone, got back in the car and kept driving.

By midnight he was was stepping off a train in Sofia, Bulgaria, just another yawning traveller arriving at a station he had once known well. Whatever else Hydra might have done, they hadn't widened the search for him so far that his ID raised alarms at the border. He'd have to ditch his documentation if he didn't want to leave a trail that was easy to follow. The thought that every one of his covers might be unusable didn't exactly thrill him. He knew what he needed and he knew exactly where he might find it.

The streets outside the station were still brightly lit and busy and it was easy for him to slip among the people that strolled between bars and restaurants. Dark streets whipped by as he huddled down into his borrowed jacket. His grip on the bag of clothing and weapons in his hand was steady and sure, as was the rucksack on his shoulder containing the medical supplies.

Familiarity rushed in, memories of times gone by in which the streets he moved along had been a more significant part of his existence. He'd been a different person then, had a different view on the world. How would his old life going to react to his current incarnation? His guess, not well. Had he not needed to fall back on old contacts, he wouldn't have ever wanted to find out.

When a particular Soviet built apartment block came into view, the concrete appearing to glow in the dim light thrown from the nearby street lamps, a shiver flashed up Clint's spine. The block was a hive of black market activity and certainly lacking in the charm of some of its neighbours; it wasn't a place for the unwary. Memory Lane, part two.

From across the street, eyes fixed on the building, he wondered whether the sheen of sweat on his brow was as obvious to the rest of the world as it was to him. "Agent Barton, this is your life," he muttered under his breath and set off toward the entrance.

Five doorbells later, he was inside and climbing the stairwell. The sheer volume of poured concrete reminded him of other Soviet constructed buildings, Eastern Block architecture at it's finest. On the fifth floor, he moved along the hallways until he found the door that he was looking for. The hallway around him swam slightly before his eyes and he swallowed, unconsciously moving a hand to shield the wound to his side which he had yet to clean and tend to properly.

The lack of answer at his repeated knocking wasn't a surprise. In the years since he had last walked these halls it was entirely possible that the knock had changed, that his contact might have moved on. Clint examined the label to the right hand side of the door and found a name that he recognised.

"Wish I had time to wait around for you to come back Al," he breathed, "but I'd sooner not be on the street right now."

He turned his attention to the lock on the door, trying to ascertain the best possible way to crack to lock and get inside. He expected to see it quite easily, expected to find a way inside before most of the people living the tower even knew he was there.

Instead he felt the cold press of steel at the back of his skull and heard the ominous click of a safety catch being released. It was not how he had imagined the end of his day.


	6. Chapter 6

"It's been a long time Barton," the voice exclaimed without any particular warmth, not really a surprise, Al wasn't known for having a particularly sunny personality. Since he was a ghost that nobody around here probably expected to see again, Clint resolved not to take the welcome personally.

It was always a bit of a distraction to have a gun against his skull, no matter how many times he had experienced it, particularly when he knew that it wasn't the weapon of choice for the person holding it. Much as he favoured his bow, Al had always had a strong preference for the delivery of high voltage current - usually through deployment of a taser. With an actual handgun in the mix however there was always the exciting possibility that he would end up getting shot to liven up proceedings. He'd been there and done that quite enough in the last few days.

Raising both hands in a show of surrender, Clint identified no less than three ways in which he could possibly take control of the weapon and quickly dismissed them all. It was always an option if things went seriously awry, but a show of force would not help his case, not when he wanted Al to remember that they had once greeted one another without one them having a gun to the other's cranium. No he decided, it would be far better to try and diffuse the situation with words. He did, after all, require a favour.

"I'm just here as an old friend," he explained, keeping his voice even and level, "not in any official capacity."

"I wasn't aware that old friends broke into one another's apartments in the middle of the night," Al countered. "You say you're not here on orders but after the career boost of New York it doesn't make sense for an Avenger to come this far down the rabbit hole for a social visit."

While he would hardly consider New York to have been a career opportunity (largely due to his boots on the ground perspective), it didn't surprise him that some of his old contacts might have been keeping tabs on him since he had changed sides. Mercs generally liked to know who they might come up against in the field, as well as any weaknesses that they might have. If they had indeed been assessing him for signs of weakness then it was probably a good thing they couldn't possibly know about Loki's mind warping capabilities and all the PTSD related fun that had led to.

"Yeah well the media only ever show half of the story, everyone knows that," he remarked, deliberately keeping a hint of amusement in his voice in the hope that the fact they were once friends might win out. "We go back far enough that you know that the dictionary definition of hero doesn't apply here."

He let the silence stretch out for a few seconds, letting the hand that held the gun weigh up the pros and cons of shooting him before he spoke again. "Look, are we really going to do this in the hallway or can we go inside?"

The pressure at the back of his skull lessened as the press of the barrel eased back and then he heard the jingle of keys, the tumbling of locks, and the door in front of him swung open. Al stepped off a little and then a half hearted shove to the back of his shoulder had him climbing to his feet and walking inside. "Leave the bag, I'll bring it in."

Without being told where to go he walked into the open living area of the apartment, only to be hit by a powerful wave of deja vu when he found it almost exactly the same as it was the last time he was there, and then turned around to look at a face he hadn't anticipated seeing again.

Al was pretty much as he remembered, surly and still sporting about nine piercings in each ear as well as several other visible piercings. From black combat boots and faded black jeans to black bomber jacket and grey hooded sweatshirt, she was like any angry young activist, capable of blending into a crowd and infiltrating any protest rally. The poster child for anti-social genius, she mightn't look like much but Clint knew better than to doubt her. Al knew exactly how to handle herself, he had after all helped to train her.

"Didn't think I'd see you around here anytime this side of retirement," the hacker remarked, pegging him with a level stare. The gun was down by her hip but still in her hand. "You did go straight on us after all …"

"Well we might remember the circumstances a little differently," Clint remarked mildly. "I had the choice of joining or being a guest of a federal penitentiary for an unspecified yet lengthy period of time."

Al chuckled and moved past him deeper into the apartment, she secured the weapon, tossed it down on the table and lit up a cigarette. She inhaled deeply, drawing as much as she could into her lungs and holding it there a good couple of seconds before exhaling. "You stayed though didn't you?"

This time it was Clint's turn to shrug. Yes, he had stayed, mainly because once he got a look at how SHIELD actually worked he'd known that it was worthwhile. The life that he'd shared with people like Al had been enough for him once but he'd outgrown it, he just hadn't realised that until he'd had the chance to experience something bigger. "It has its benefits."

Al's eyes scrutinised him as she flicked ash from the end of her cigarette, a cloud of bluish grey smoke forming around her. He didn't remember her being a smoker but the pile of butts in the ashtray suggested that she had taken up the habit in the years since they'd last seen one another. How old was she now? When he looked at her, really looked at her without seeing her through the windows of his memory, he realised that she was no longer the young woman he had known. He wasn't the only one to have grown in his absence.

Exhaling another plume of smoke into the air, she sank onto the chair that was already pulled out from the table. Lifting one leg, she crossed it over the other and tilted her head to one side. "Your gait is off, are you injured?" she asked.

She'd always been observant, never one to miss something like a weakness or to avoid commenting on it. Al's job was to notice things, big and small, the details that nobody else thought to look for. Nobody could exploit computer code the way she could, or get into systems that weren't supposed to be seen. She had been the friendly neighbourhood anarchist to their merry band of hired thugs, thieves and killers, the gatekeeper of all information. In answer, Clint raised the hem of his shirt to reveal the stained dressing that protruded above the waistband of his jeans and the bruises that had developed over his rib cage, still deep red-violet and angry looking. "Caught three bullets," he admitted, "but I'm still breathing."

"You're like a cockroach Barton, anyone ever tell you that?" There was a hint of affection in the words and in the twitch of her lips as she spoke them.

"Only you Al," he replied flippantly. He lowered his shirt. "It's been a long couple of days, any chance I can use your bathroom to clean up?"

With a nod of her head, Al indicated the relevant door. "Mi casa, su casa," she told him. "I'll assume that your travel plans didn't include any thought as to where you were going to sleep and make up the sofa bed."

"You're an angel."

She uncoiled from the chair, stubbing out the cigarette as she stood. "Yeah that's me," she countered, "though if you trip over my halo be sure to polish it up for me."

She was busy making up the bed and talking about fixing them a late night snack when he gathered his bags and slipped into the bathroom. Clint didn't contradict her assumptions about his sleeping arrangements; no matter how uncomfortable that promised sofa bed might be he would sleep like a log. Two days on the road and a night in the branches of a tree had left him with a powerful yearning for hot water, given the circumstances he'd even settle for the just past warm offerings of the building's less than efficient pipe system. He'd bathed in a few streams and rivers in his time and indoor plumbing, however inefficient, was always appreciated, particularly when it came with overhead lighting and a door that locked.

He turned on the shower and stripped down to his shorts while the water warmed up. The mirror above the sink gave him a fantastic view of the bruises he'd acquired over the last forty eight hours, varying shades of red, blue and violet beneath the bright white illumination. Hissing in a breath, he peeled away the dressing on his lower abdomen and examined the area beneath it. The skin around the stitches was red and angry looking and he knew that he was more than likely headed toward a minor infection, which certainly went some of the way toward explaining the dull headache and the beginnings of fever.

When he stepped into the tub and eased his battered body beneath the spray, the water pummelled his face, neck and shoulders, easing a tightness that he hadn't been aware of. It wasn't as hot as he would have liked but it was on the right side of warm and he was grateful for it. Clint washed himself carefully and then braced himself against the tiled wall with one arm, letting the water rush over him while he inhaled the steam filled air. The smell of soap tingled in his nose, not his own brand but infinitely preferable to the scent of his own blood.

"What made me think that this was a good idea?" he muttered to himself, hanging his head so that the water pounded down onto the back of his neck. The answer was obvious really, desperation had brought him there. It was obvious that she distrusted his motives and even if Al agreed to go beyond her current 'good samaritan' act and put him in touch with one of her forger contacts, which he had absolutely no right to expect her to do, they didn't work for free. Clint had exactly one hundred and thirty eight euros to his name and any attempt to access his accounts carried the risk of bringing Hydra bearing down on his contacts. Absolutely not an option.

He was, as any one of his good friends would no doubt tell him, were they only there to do so, royally screwed.

He finished up in the shower, towelled off carefully and spent some time cleaning and doctoring his side. The antiseptic stung as he tried to dab between the stitches with a q-tip, leaving the area around the extraction site tingling in a less than pleasant way. Dressing carefully, he chose not to cover the wound immediately and opted to leave his jeans unbuttoned to give the injury chance to breathe.

"Made you some coffee," she announced, busying herself with mugs and plates in the small kitchen area as he stepped out of the bathroom. Shirt hanging open and skin still damp from the shower, he crossed the room to the freshly made up couch and dropped his bags to the floor beside it. At the sound of the impact, she spun around, hand reaching reflexively toward one of the canisters on the counter top and then exhaled audibly. She most definitely had a weapon there; good to know. Her eyes settled on him, raking over the exposed flesh with barely a hint of interest before she spoke. "Jesus Barton, did you forget how to dress yourself?"

"Just thought I'd let the wound breathe for a little while without a waistband pressing on it," he replied, pointing toward the angry red skin above his hip. "If it makes you feel more comfortable I can …"

"Don't bother," she exclaimed with a wave of her hand. "It's not like the view is a terrible one. I'll adjust."

Which was about as close to a compliment as he could hope to get from the woman in front of him. He moved back across the room to what passed as the kitchen, and eased himself down into one of the chairs at the table. Accepting the mug that she offered him, he surreptitiously inhaled the strong, rich aroma in an incredibly rudimentary test for added chemicals. Drugging a man's coffee hadn't been Al's style when they'd last been part of one another's lives but time and circumstance could change people radically. He didn't bother adding sugar once he'd decided that it was probably safe to drink, just sipped at the black liquid and sighed at its familiar taste on his tongue. A few quiet minutes later, she came across with the pot and refilled his mug.

Over a simple platter of cooked meats, pickles, bread and grilled cheese, they talked about nothing of importance. Clint was deliberately trying to avoid mentioning some of their old associates, knowing that his disappearance had been a betrayal that they were unlikely to forgive, and it seemed that Al was dancing around the subject of his recent troubles. At least some things were uncomplicated; the food, while simple, was delicious and his stomach welcomed it, as did his taste buds which tingled at the sharp, sourness of the pickles and the salty cheese.

"So are you going to tell me who decided your ego needed to be deflated a little?" she asked making light of the recent bullet wounds in a way that only someone who had contemplated shooting him could.

"Wasn't really my ego that they tried to deflate," he replied, "more like my lungs."

She chuckled then narrowed hazel eyes at him. The ring in her eyebrow glinted in the light. "C'mon spill. Was it anyone we know?"

"Not unless you're acquainted with a Nazi sleeper division that were supposedly wiped out years before you were born."

"Seriously?"

He nodded, already regretting the fact that he'd let that particular bit of information out. Information was a commodity, bought at cost and sold to the highest bidder. "Looks like SHIELD is going to war, which means that I have to assume that all of my existing covers are blown and I'll need a new one to get me back to the US."

"Where you'll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder …"

"Comes with the territory Al, you know that."

She leaned back in her seat and drummed her fingers on the tabletop, apparently giving his predicament some thought. They both knew that he could simply disappear into the chaos that currently swirled around his employers, create a new identity, fall back into his old life; they both knew that he wouldn't. "What can I do to help?" she asked finally, though her tone implied less than one hundred percent enthusiasm for the offer. Again, Clint didn't take that personally.

"Don't suppose you're still dealing with that forger who did the work for the Monaco job?" he asked hopefully.

"Caffrey? Yeah he's still in town." Al picked up the packet of cigarettes on the table and rotated it end over end, the cardboard making subtle tapping sounds every time it touched the wood.

"His work is some of the best I've ever seen." Saying so was high praise indeed, Clint had seen more forged documents than most and had an eye for those that would escape detection. The documents that Caffrey had made for him before a job in Monaco had been indistinguishable from the real thing, every one of them perfect imitations of that which various governments liked to tell themselves were 'unforgeable'. "Think he can be persuaded to help me out with my paperwork issues?"

"Not if you make the approach personally," she replied, putting the cigarette box down again. "He only works with people he knows these days it's not safe to take jobs from outsiders."

There was something in the way she said it that made Clint sit up and pay attention. Earlier he had been too distracted by the gun she held at his head to wonder what she meant when she'd assumed that he was there in a professional capacity. "Dangerous times," he agreed. "How are the old crew doing anyway?"

Al resumed tapping her fingers on the tabletop. Clint studied her fingertips with their short nails and chipped black polish, reading the agitation in her movement, and waited. "You'd know better than me."

Confusion must have shown on his face because when she looked at him, she continued talking. "SHIELD took them Barton. They've been taking them for months."


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn't possible, was it? Surely he would have heard about it if his employers were picking up his old contacts. They'd always known about the others, as he'd discovered shortly after being offered his position with them, but had never made any move to detain them. Some situations were too problematic to be handled by their own agents and it was always helpful for them to know where they might find a good hand for hire, plausible deniability and all that.

Wondering was a dangerous thing, Clint would know. The entire concept of second guessing what he thought he knew resulted only in giving him a headache and ultimately brought him no closer to the answers he sought. In the end he simply asked her to explain.

"There were raids, middle of the night usually, operatives came, busted down doors and took them without any warning. I figured you would know."

He would have. SHIELD might occasionally take someone into custody if they were a proven threat but they had no real interest in the operations of independent mercenaries until they got onto their radar in the wrong way. If Fury or Hill had ordered any of his old associates to be detained then they would have told him, more out of courtesy than anything else.

"SHIELD wouldn't come for them in the middle of the night Al," he replied gravely, "and they wouldn't just indiscriminately round up skilled people …"

"Well someone did," she argued, pushing her hair out of her face. "They took Izzy and Caleb, Hunter disappeared a few days later, and then Piper, Bones and Jackson."

So many names from his past, people he had worked with, drank with, respected. There were other names though, ones that Al had been careful to avoid, those who would have felt the most strongly about his shift in loyalty, those he had worked with on a regular basis and had once considered close to family.

"What about the others?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"Scattered," she replied lifting a hand and chewing on a thumbnail. "We went dark for a while. Caffrey's still here, Mercy is across the border in Belgrade. The others check in every week or two for jobs or to relay information."

"I'd have known if they were coming for you," he told her, suddenly ill at ease with the thought of his former friends being taken from their homes by people claiming to work for his agency. Then again, he'd been shot not seventy two hours earlier by someone purporting to work for SHIELD hadn't he? "SHIELD records every interview that they conduct, there would be a paper trail."

"There isn't," Al told him matter of factly. "Your girlfriend dumped most of SHIELD's files onto the internet..."

"She's not my girlfriend," he replied automatically.

"Hardly the point. I checked everything I could get access to: case logs, person of interest lists, security footage, CCTV and all airport manifests, whoever took them did it quietly. I can't find any record of them being transported out of the country so they're either smuggling them out or they aren't out there to find."

He asked her to show him the information that she had and she obliged. Over her shoulder, he watched as she replayed CCTV video on one of the bank of computers that occupied an impressive desk set-up in the apartment's only bedroom. The footage was disturbing, former friends dragged out into the night with bags over their heads by people who looked very much like SHIELD black ops agents. The uniforms matched but the features weren't familiar. Correct uniforms, operating under the guise of legitimate agents, rounding up people who were skilled in various disciplines -they were SHIELD but not SHIELD.

It began to fall, somewhat disturbingly, into place. Fury wouldn't order a mass round up of skilled people but Hydra … all bets were off where they were concerned.

"That isn't SHIELD," he told her with certainty as he pointed at the screen, "but they'd have to have access to the agency's database."

Al turned her head to look at him, clearly unsure as to why he thought so. Her brows nipped together as she thought it through and her hands stilled over the keyboard. "You think it's the people who came after you," she concluded, "how would they know where to find non-affiliated people?"

"Same way they knew where to find me," Clint replied uneasily. " Just because SHIELD doesn't come after you doesn't mean that they don't have an idea where to look."

Realisation dawned on Al's face, her eyes widening and lips parting into an expression of surprise. "They're on the inside."

He didn't like the implications but he couldn't ignore them. If Hydra were deep within SHIELD then it was entirely possible that they were 'aggressively recruiting', particularly if the news footage from Washington was to be believed. Who knew how deep the taint went? Anyone could be a sleeper agent, even those he thought of as friends.

Clint exploded out of his chair. "I need to get back there Al," he announced urgently. He paced to the furthest edge of the room and then turned, gesturing needlessly with an arm to emphasise his point. "I need to stop things before they go too far."

Al rose from her own chair but made no attempt to put herself in his path as he continued to pace around the small space between the door and the desk. "You're bleeding again," she said calmly, "so sit down before you collapse."

He was surprised to find that she was right and that blood was dripping sluggishly down his hip bone toward his jeans. It wasn't much, certainly wasn't anything to be unduly concerned about, but it was enough to make the sober reality of his limitation set in. He wasn't enhanced the way that some of his friends were, he was human with all its accompanying frailties. It sucked.

She tossed him a towel which he used to dab the blood away from his skin. Following her instruction, he sank down onto the edge of the bed and pressed the balled up fabric against the wound to apply pressure. "Thanks."

"Welcome," she replied returning her attention to the screens in front of her. For a few seconds the only sound to break the silence was the tapping of computer keys as Al worked, her eyes fixed on the monitor. Clint passed the time trying to come up with a workable plan.

Moves and countermoves, that's what this Hydra attack consisted of - aim for those in control of SHIELD, wait for them to counter; discredit SHIELD in the eyes of the world, wait for the backlash; round up mercenaries and freelance contractors across the globe, forcefully and without warning; wait for SHIELD to implode under the weight of their combined fury.

"There's a crew that have been put together to take down a trafficking ring that's been operating across Europe," Al announced after a while. "All of them are skilled, ex special forces, military training, explosives experts and the like …"

Clint waited, wondering whether this was one of the Al's random expositions or whether there was a point. He really hoped that there was a point. "Which has what to do with me?"

She glanced up from the monitor and offered him a 'cat that got the canary' smile. "They're looking for a shooter."

Though he favoured the simplicity of his bow, Clint rarely missed a target with any ranged weapon. He might not be at his best with a gun but he was still way better than most. "You think they'd pay me enough to cover passage back to the US?"

"The op is being bankrolled by representatives of nine different EU countries," she told him, "I don't think anyone put a limit on the budget. So long as you get the job done, you can most likely name your price."

It sounded perfect, well if he ignored the fact that it meant falling back into a life that he had never wanted to return to, a surefire way for him to get back to where he needed to be and help whatever was left of his team. The problem was, Clint had learnt the hard way that when something looked too perfect it generally was. "What's the catch?" he asked.

"Who says there is one?" she asked. "Aside from you having to colour outside the lines again that is …"

He wasn't entirely convinced; he was too damned tired to argue. Exhaustion crept up on his like a wave, draining the argumentative tendencies right out of him. How long since he had slept properly? If he disregarded a few moments of brief slumber and a less than idyllic few hours tied to a tree branch, the answer seemed to indicate that his post surgery nap was the most rest he'd had in nearly forty-eight hours. As if triggered by the thought process, his mouth opened in a yawn.

He didn't argue when she pushed, prodded and cajoled him into getting some rest, content to retreat to the sofa bed and the inviting thought of sleeping without the need to keep one eye open. If Al said he would be safe in her apartment then he trusted her not to betray him in any way; she had after all already put herself on the line to help him. So instead of fighting, he allowed her to fuss a little, gave in to her instance that he redress the wound, and then popped a couple of painkillers to help him sleep. His eyes were closed almost as soon as his head hit the pillow but if he dreamed none of the images stayed with him.

A few hours of sleep turned into twelve straight hours and the confirmation that he was running a fever when he woke to afternoon sunlight and the sound of the apartment door clicking closed. His fingers were under the pillow and reaching for the switchblade that he always kept within easy reach before his brain caught up and he realised that it was just Al returning from wherever she had been.

Easing the cross body bag off her shoulder, she simply raised a pierced eyebrow in his direction and sighed. "I get that near death experiences probably make you twitchy Barton but since no-one else knows you're here …"

Clint forced himself upright, the last two days making themselves felt on his body with every movement. "It's been a rough couple of days," he replied, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and attempting to shield his gaze from the bright sunlight flooding through the windows. "Did you open literally every blind in here?"

"Figured you might need a nudge towards consciousness," she replied with a smile that Clint considered somewhere between sweet and sadistic. She tipped her head to one side and looked at him more intently, the silence drawing out for a long moment. "How's your wound?"

A reasonably innocuous comment to be fair, but one that Clint read as 'how compromised are you and how ill are you currently pretending you aren't?'

"Tender," he replied, stretching slightly and feeling the pull of healing tissue, " a few pain pills and something to lower my temperature and I'll be good to go."

Al shook her head slightly, disbelief evident even if her complete lack of surprise wasn't. "Of course you will," she remarked. She moved across the apartment toward the kitchen and busied herself with filling the kettle, arranging mugs and removing coffee and sugar from their storage places. "Caffrey has agreed to help with your documentation issue but he's working on another job right now that will probably take another day. Once he's done with that he'll get straight onto making what you need."

And then he would owe someone like Caffrey a favour. Clint, having managed to navigate his entire career without finding himself in the debt of someone as particular or trouble prone as Al's master forger, wasn't sure how he felt about that scenario. Beggars could not be choosers however. He needed documents; Caffrey could and would provide them. Done deal.

"What am I supposed to do for another day and a half?" he asked.

Al shrugged, "guess you'll just have to rest up and plan your dastardly schemes from the comfort of my couch."

"Or I could find someone other than Caffrey to do the papers …"

She whirled to face him, her face a mask of exasperation. "Don't be an idiot Barton!" she exclaimed. "Besides, you'll need your wits about you if you're going into this particular mission. Nobody likes a smartass who can't shoot straight."

Again, she wasn't wrong; it didn't sting his ego any less to know that though. In order to get back to where he was needed, he needed to get paid. In order to get paid, he would have to successfully carry out the job. In this instance there wasn't time for any of his more creative exploits.

Hours passed slowly, torturously so. Clint watched shit Bulgarian TV and drifted in and out of sleep, well aware that once he left the relative safety of Al's domain he might not get the chance. He was waking from the latest of his naps, cramp setting one side of his neck and his right calf on fire, when Al commandeered the television, the set of her jaw discouraging him from any outward objection. Numbly, he absorbed what was showing, sifting through his rusty grasp of Bulgarian to make sure he was fully understanding the enormity of what was being reported.

SHIELD agents were being disavowed; demands were being issued for those that could be found to face trial for actions committed under orders; Nicholas J Fury, spymaster extraordinaire was dead.

End of an era.

His fingers tightened on the arm of the chair, knuckles white with tension. His voice when he found it was low and tense. "Get word to Caffrey, I want to be out of the country by the end of the day tomorrow."


	8. Chapter 8

**AN -** _Sorry for the delay between chapters. There was a bereavement in the family and I've been busy dealing with that. Looking forward to getting my head back in the game here!_

* * *

"Well you don't have many options that will get you to where you need to be faster than this," Al informed him. It wasn't that she hadn't explained the alternatives already, more that Clint was too agitated to hear them properly.

The documents had arrived late in the evening, confirming Clint's hunch that Caffrey would work as close to the deadline as humanly possible before delivering on his promise. They were exquisite though, so close to the real thing that it would be extremely unlikely he'd be discovered. The forger's attention to detail was enough to offset the irritation at the wait.

Chafing to be on the move now that he had the means, he was hoping for a quick solution to the travel problem. The problem was that most of the crew attached to the operation that Al had put him forward for were currently scouting the traffickers on the island of Ibiza and in order to get there he needed to take two flights, or one flight and a boat, or a train that would take even longer, and then a boat …

"You're sure that it's the fastest way?" he asked, glancing at the map that was laid out atop Al's bed and then up at the woman who was bending a dozen laws to help him. He felt like an insensitive asshole; perhaps he was, but he was too strung out with worry about getting back Stateside and couldn't help himself.

Al blew the ends of her hair out of her eyes with a sharp breath. "Not only is this the fastest way but it's probably the safest," she told him. "Airport customs will be a breeze and once you've cleared those they probably won't be too worried about the paperwork when you come to leave the mainland."

"And the next flight is …?"

He heard the movement of her fingers on the keyboard and allowed himself to think back to when he had met her, Alice Culpepper, an orphan who had fallen into the hands of relatives who were both abusive and morally delinquent. She'd been fourteen and on the verge of being sold to a trafficking ring, already bruised and beaten, three of her fingers broken, too afraid to look him in the eye. He'd taken one look at the situation she was in, seen the echoes of his own childhood, and taken action. Clint had made sure that she found somewhere safe to sleep, got an education and knew that he would always be there if she needed him.

"Tomorrow," Al replied, fingers still moving on the keys. "You'd take the flight from here at eleven am and we can have you where you need to be by sundown. Once you're on the plane I can forward the details on and tell them to expect you."

Sundown the next day. One step closer to getting back to where he could be useful.

"Don't suppose you'll let me pay you back for all of this once I'm back on the right side of the law?"

Al snorted with laughter and reclined in her chair to look at him. "I think we're a little past that, don't you?"

He knew what she was implying, that she would never stop owing him for what he had done for her decades earlier. It was an open secret between the two of them but rarely shared beyond that tight little circle that Clint Barton had paid for the upkeep of the orphaned girl he had rescued, that he had made sure she had everything she needed.

When Al had developed a talent for computing and taught herself how to write viruses and hack into computer security systems, he had helped her to find work, which in turn helped to fund her path through university. She had fallen into the murky, off the grid world of the mercenary shortly after graduation and immersed herself in it.

"Well, if we're doing things old school then I guess I'll just have to owe you a favour ... or five."

She smiled, victorious now that she knew she had won the argument that hadn't quite become an argument. "Works for me," she replied brightly. "Now what shall we do with your last night in the city?"

The following morning Al accompanied him to the airport, despite his insistence that he could manage just fine on his own. She drove him there in her ancient Volkswagen, a car which left him wondering on more than one occasion whether he would even make it to the airport in one piece. Between the mechanics of the car and Al's somewhat erratic driving, complete with wild hand gesticulation and ear splitting punk rock, it was a shock that they made it there in one piece, though there was never any possibility that they would be late. She had broken more traffic laws than he could count on the way.

"You've got all the information about your onward travel arrangements?" Al asked as they moved across the car park toward the airport entrance.

Clint adjusted his grip on the bag in his hand and settled the strap of his rucksack more securely on his shoulder, thankful that Caffrey had shown enough foresight to forge documentation that would account for him travelling with his bow and arrows. Professional athletes didn't tend to get any trouble when passing through customs. His cover as a professional archer would allow for the bow and the rest of the stuff in his bag. Clint had never fully appreciated the convenience of private aircraft until now.

"I have tickets, boarding passes, timetables and just about everything else I could need," he informed her. "It's almost like you don't trust me to make the trip without you …"

The tilt of her eyebrow was a screaming declaration that he wasn't far wrong, but her smile was mischievous rather than malicious. "You got shot remember?" she replied, heavy boots punctuating every step as she kept pace with him. They slid into the terminal through the automatic doors and paused just long enough to glance around the crowded space, assessing the people around them in search of threats. "I can't help wanting to make the journey out there as easy as possible for you. You've had a rough week."

She wasn't wrong. Scanning the crowd, he thought for a second that he detected a familiar face and, gaze sharpening, he honed in on the figure. A second later, the man turned and Clint realised that he didn't know him after all. False alarm. He really was getting paranoid.

Two days in Sofia without having the watch his back had made a world of difference to his injuries and he was now able to move around without betraying the fact that he was only four days out of surgery. In spite of the circumstances, it had been good to see the woman in front of him again, particularly when she didn't have a gun to his head. He had a strange tendency to like most people better when they didn't have a gun to his head.

"There's your flight number."

Following the line of her gaze, he absorbed the gate number and the relevant check in desk details from the departure screen. Goodbyes had never been his forte, which was why he hadn't made direct contact with his past life since joining SHIELD. Saying goodbye to Al wouldn't be any easier this time, not when she had pretty much saved his ass and handed him a way to get back to the US with no expectation of repayment. "Well I guess this is …"

Taking him by surprise, Al rose on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her hand lingered on his cheek and despite his discomfort with goodbyes, he found his free arm wrapping tightly around her.

"Take care of yourself Barton," she said fondly. "Don't be a stranger."

Awkwardly stepping back from one another, they had a moment where neither of them knew quite what to say. Goodbyes, always awkward, particularly when they hadn't actually had one the last time he left. She might have known where he was but Al had been deprived the opportunity to say goodbye and wish him well. This time they were parting as adults, as equals.

She watched him the whole time he was in line for the check in desk and raised one hand in a final wave as he disappeared through into the departure area. She was an inconspicuous figure among the crowd, just a young woman who had said goodbye to a friend or lover.

It wasn't until Clint was on the plane that he realised Al hadn't told him just who was running the operation in Ibiza.


End file.
